A new park, functioning as a connection point for pedestrian routes across the city, forms a key public open space in Eastside. The synergistic relationship between the park and the library will animate both, with activities in the park drawing visitors to the library and events in the library contributing to the life of the park outside.

City & Context

The library, replacing the city’s failing 1960s building, is to be located in a new park that forms the heart of the re-born Eastside, an area previously isolated by ring-road and now the subject of regeneration development proposals.

Legibility

The clarity of the diagrammatic arrangement, with the great oversailing canopy of the roof and the open, glazed perimeter walls allow a high degree of visual permeability. A twin masted tower, accommodating a lift up to the sky garden, also provides the library with an urban scale marker, visible from further afield.